Rapid solidification of molten metal with a cooling roll rotating at a high speed, or so-called “rapid cooling process” has been developed as a technique for manufacturing thin metal strips. In this case, it is one of important issues that the thin metal strip manufactured at the high speed is separated from the cooling roll and transported to a take-up reel and wound in form of a coil without causing damages.
For example, as the technique of transporting and winding the thin metal strip, Patent Document 1 proposes a method of manufacturing a thin metal strip by pouring molten metal onto a cooling roll rotating at a high speed, rapidly solidifying into a thin metal strip, separating out the thin metal strip from the cooling roll, transporting to a take-up device and winding in form of a coil with the take-up device, wherein the thin metal strip is separated out from the cooling roll by blowing compression gas in a tangential direction of the cooling roll and thus the separated thin metal strip is adsorbed with a permeable belt of a suction type conveyor run from behind with respect to a transportation direction and transported to the take-up device at an adsorbed state.
In the technique of Patent Document 1, however, the thin metal strip is transported while applying tension by making the speed of the permeable belt of the suction type conveyor faster than the speed of the thin metal strip just after the separating out from the cooling roll or the strip forming speed to generate friction force between the belt and the thin metal strip. In this rapid cooling process, the high temperature molten metal is rapidly cooled, so that the temperature of the belt inevitably rises up to about 100° C. In the belt made of nylon or the like being poor in the heat resistance, therefore, the belt is deposited onto the thin metal strip to increase friction coefficient. As a result, tension applied to the thin metal strip becomes too large in the winding of the coil with the take-up reel, and there is a problem that breakage is easily caused. This problem is solved by using a stainless mesh belt, but there is inversely caused another problem that flaws are apt to be easily caused in the thin metal strip due to friction between the latter belt and the thin metal strip.
As a technique of solving such a problem, for example, Patent Document 2 proposes a method of winding thin metal strip by adsorbing a thin metal strip separated from a cooling roll with a belt of a suction type conveyor disposed in the vicinity of the cooling roll, transporting to a take-up reel and winding with the take-up reel while applying tension to the thin metal strip, wherein the tension applied to the thin metal strip is decreased to prevent breakage by making the speed of the belt of the suction type conveyor slower than the strip forming speed, and Patent Document 3 proposes a method of winding a thin metal strip by adsorbing the same thin metal strip as mentioned above by a suction type conveyor, transporting to a take-up reel, and winding with the take-up reel while applying tension to the thin metal strip, wherein a belt covered with a fluorine resin is used in the suction type conveyor to make friction small to thereby decrease tension applied to the thin metal strip.